Stay tuned to the end for a chance to win a prize!
As filmmakers, we have to film scenes in all kinds of situations. One of the more challenging things to shoot is a scene that takes place at night. You have to consider where you are going to motivate your lighting from, whether it’s practical lights, the moon, or something else. Additionally, you have to decide the best way to create that light, within the space that you have. Today, director of photography Hunter Gulan walks us through how to shoot night interior scene on any budget, using high end and low budget lighting gear.
In this video, Hunter shows us the steps he takes when shooting a night interior scene. First, he establishes a character inside the room, sitting in the dark. This allows for more attention to be put towards the moonlight coming through the window. Next, he adds a second character entering the scene, coming through the door when the lights turn on. This causes him to create a lighting gag for the lights to turn on during the shot. Lastly, he shoots a wide shot of the scene with the lights on. In this shot, he contrasts the cool moonlight with the warm interior light.
The main techniques we will be discussing today are creating moonlight, creating color contrast, and working smarter and not harder. Creating moonlight refers to the way one shapes their lighting to appear as natural moonlight. This usually means creating a soft source that is slightly blue, to look like the moon. Creating color contrast means lighting a scene with lights that are two different colors or color temperatures. In this example, there is contrast between the warm light inside the house and the cool blue light outside. Working smarter not harder means thinking about how best to convey information with imagery, while shooting your scene in the most efficient way. In this scene, the lighting gag was done in a close up shot to save time, as opposed to lighting the entire room.
Whether you’re lighting in the direct sunlight, or in the middle of the night, there are some lighting techniques that will apply anywhere. Soft lighting is going to make your subjects look good no matter where you are. Color contrast is another thing that can always be used to enhance the look of your film. Just keep in mind, wherever you are, and whatever you’re shooting, you can always use lighting and your environment to help tell your story.
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How have you used moonlight in a project? Comment below for a chance to win an MC!
I used moonlight once in a scene where a guy reads a letter left by her ex-girlfriend and when he leaves the room convinced and motivated to get her back, it is an out the window shot and there is where I used it
opening scene of Travis Thompson, safe 🌝
I used moonlight in a scene where the windows where huge and the full moon was positioned exactly I would have needed to put a light I didn't have, in a scene where it would have been challenging to recreate the moon as we didn't have anything that big. I guess the right time of year and lucky us.
I’ve used a moonlight in a black and white romantic short film, inspired by the 60’s
No moon light inside house , instead warmer CTO from window. N moon light outside the door.🙂
Love the high/low budget set ups.
I haven't had to use moonlight yet. But if and when I do use moonlight, I won't be using soft light. Moonlight is a hard light source. On a full moon day with no clouds in the sky, stand outside and let your eyes adjust. You will see a defined shadow with hard edges because moonlight is hard light. More often then not, moonlight that is soft and falls off quickly because the fixture is so close to the window (inverse square law) makes the light look like streetlights, not moonlight. So that is how I would use it. Hard light, and try to increase the distance of the fixture to the windows or subject to increase the inverse square law in order to best simulate natural light.
Another wonderful episode, thanks for creating, Tony
Haven’t had the right story to incorporate moonlight, but I love the thought of mixing that ultra cool tone with the sodium vapor color from street lamps.
For one of our studio shorts in film school we used book lighting for moonlight! The scene was in a bedroom and we needed moonlight (our ambient light) coming through the window; so we aimed the light (with CTB) towards a wall of the studio and that light reflected back into the window of the bedroom. We then put a diffusion between the studio wall and the bedroom window to soften it even more (like Hunter said soft light is great for moonlight).
I used it in my latest horror short project. I really love the eerie cool feeling moonlight gives, perfect for horror.
Marvelous piece of content! Loving your content.
I remember once on the sets of a webseries I was an intern at, our DOP decided to use a few HMI's from outside the window, diffused them with silk and shot on a cooler white balance in camera to create a night look.
Awesome video here Aputure and great breakdown by Hunter and his team. Worked with this guy on set in the past and him & his crew are talented, chill dudes. Definitely crew goals 🙌🤘
Hey! Thanks for the feedback! Hunter and his team are very professional and fun to work with :)
I've used moonlight a few times, but one of my favorite times was a very simple set up in a bathroom. I used one like at 5600K w/ a #183 moonlight blue gel over it to shine through the window behind the subject sitting on a toilet. I then had her turn her cell phone on the brightest setting and use that as a practical. Resulting in a scene where she's on her phone in the bathroom, and a figure outside appears behind her in the window (as a silhouette). Simple, yet effective using one light, one gel, and one cell phone.
I have used some of your light for creating moonlight effect. My tip is to use a soft light and giving it as much distance as possible. I used my 120D and the mini dome, and giving it distance you will create a more realistic effect by giving the light a longer drop, so its nicer and even softer. The moon is on a really really far distance, so by giving the light the maximum output, you can put it way further! Happy new year btw
A few years ago I thought it would be a great idea to have a night exterior in the middle of a forest for a music video shoot. I put 4 neewer Leds as high as they would go on cheap lightstands and turned them to full. Lol worked a lot better than I thought they would. Tried to put them behind some brush and branches, and the swaying of the lights and trees from the wind made the lighting a little more interesting.
I know I'm late, but I'm using a moonlight effect for my fan film, its about halloween and night, so I'm using the moonlight effect to feel lile its night and to have the ambiance of scary/creepy night, and for you to really feel it and not just like plain grey oe dark night, blue tone / lighting gives life to a night scene.
I did a video for a Jurassic Park competition, I went to my backyard and put a blue light overhead as moonlight and an orange light as key. It was beautiful looking, with some props and background foliage I tried to get as close as I could to a contrast-y moonlight look. It was very fun and paid off well.
Yes, for a low budget feature film. I used the Aputure LS 1c set to 5500K with a CTB gell pointed through a window. Using curtains to limit the light through the opening between the curtains.
Awesome job!
i love this channel it helped me grow so much
Thank you for the feedback we appreciate you!
Yay, more overhead diagrams! And I love the high / low budget setups! Where can I find the lights you used in the low budget setup?
Hey! Thanks for the feedback. All of those lights can be found on the Aputure website aputure.com/
I'm making videoclips low budget and maybe for my next project I'm going to shoot in an abandoned building. In side the room I want to accomplish some moonlight lighting. So it would be very handy to have it with me :)
I used a moonlit scene for a music video!!!....dope AF!!
Amazing!✌️
Moonlight is perfect for drama and horror, that's why i love to put my characters on a crisis when the night comes out.
This is rad! Thank you A Team! If I were to emulate moonlight in a film, I think it’d be cool to use a CTB geled light with a cookie to cast the look of moonlight shining through the blinds of the window onto the wall. Or maybe use a cookie to make the shadow of a tree outside the window cast onto the wall.
Hey! That would be really cool! That could also be a great idea to use with a spotlight, since you can get sharper edges on the cookie.
Aputure ooh such a great point!!
I go with warm tungsten light sources, as large as my budget and location can handle. The warm sources gives you a more steel grey/white moonlight once you gel it with some CTB. For me, cool sources are just way too blue. Most of the time I use my 2K Mole Richardson on a 20' junior riser stand. The 2K only uses 16.66 amps which fits most 20 amp household outlets and its powerful enough to throw out a lot of light even through a 1/2 or full CTB. The junior stand lets me get nice and high to give a more realistic angle for the light to hit from. If I need additional coverage I bring in the 1K mole kit and toss them on the outer areas of the scene or through additional windows if indoors. Depending on the scene, I may keep the light harsh, especially if indoors. Otherwise I toss up a 8x8 frame and either bounce with an ultra-bounce or diffuse through a silk. And nothing beats a good hazer to get those particles in the air catching and boosting that moonlight. Almost necessary on outdoor night shoots.
I haven't been able to use moonlight yet, but I would first ensure that all my "moonlight" would be coming from the same general area. I really like the idea of contrasting moonlight with other warmer lights, so that's something I'll definitely be adding in the future. I think this would have been perfect for a music video I just filmed, but I still have one more scene, so perhaps I'll put it into practice there!
I've never been a fan of the blue moonlight look, because the eye doesn't read moonlight as blue. So, to me, it always comes across as a stylized choice. If you're going for realism, I think it's important to think of realistic practicals like sodium vapor street lamps that would come through windows at more direct parallel angles. If you're going to go with a moonlight look, I think you should go with a steep angle down onto the window and bounce it off the floor, if possible, to boost the ambience of the room. Once, I had a shoot on a beach and it involved a lighthouse. We mimicked the rotation of the lighthouse as one source and we countered that with some directional fill coming from the "streetlights" that would be lining the beach/parking lot/wherever. It created nice side lighting and it was enough fill to expose it properly while still allowing for the shadow side to exist in silhouette. I think, in general, letting things play into silhouette more for night interiors is an important dramatic tool that should be used more often.
Hey! I definitely agree about using silhouettes for night interiors and even exteriors. Creating realistic moonlight is very difficult and I've spent a lot of time thinking about. You're eyes don't see color at all when they're relying solely on moonlight, so maybe a desaturated look would work haha
Looks great, although I don’t know if I’m a fan of his corner rim light. He’s up to something by context of the scene so having him darker might’ve portrayed that better. I recently shot a music video emulating moonlight with a 1.2k Molefay + 3 Full CTB through a Hampshire frost on the windows, and in the bathroom scene shot with Two Quasar Crossfades + 1 1/2 CTB with the shower curtain working as a diffuser. Thanks for the video!
Hey great idea having the male character lit more darkly. Cool to think about how much lighting can effect the feeling of a scene
I want to use moonlight by a arguing scene in the night with my main character and his best (girl) friend. In the end she is turning off the light and sleeps and he is left with just the moon light Great video!
Moonlight looks great on exterior shots in nature. I prefer to use it on those scenarios rather than for interior shots. And with little diffusion, as a backlight. I also learned recently that moonlight is not really that intense blue, it's a more softer neutral color. Hope I win that cool light :)
what was the white balance in over all scenes which he didn't mention, i am about to use it in my upcoming project this month i saw this to get some ideas and inspiration!
I used camera white balance to get the blue look, then add tungsten practicals, it works..
V! I ❤️ this channel!
Thank you!
I shot a period Western this year. For a grim scene climax, I used a 300D to light only the forest in the background. As the actor rode away, he was entirely in silhouette against the lit trees, disappearing into the night.
That sounds so cool! I often think that silhouetting is good way to go for moonlighting night exteriors
THANK U !!!
For my first short film, in film school, I had a night scene in front of a house. I did not have a budget nor a crew. So I did what I could. I used daylight, under exposed my image and made it blue in post production 😅. It looked terrible, the mc light would have come in handy.
I typically use the most powerful fixture as a "moonlight kicker". Then, depending on mood, I'll use white bounce for fill or actually bounce a second light in. I always want shadow on camera side. Finally, if I am going to see any background, I'll aim a third light across the ground for a "natural spill". I'll also gel toward the blue spectrum and desaturate. As an outdoor adventurer, I've spent a lot of time outside at night with only moonlight. It's very high contrast and unsaturated. I want my audience to feel that truth. This isn't the "right" way, its just my way.
I love this! Very cool to hear how you try to create moonlight that's accurate to real life
Thank you! It's turoriel are really neat! You can give the references of use colored gels (Lee number ?) A tutorial idea: Recreate a "thunderstorm" color environment ;-) thank you!
we can use moon light for every situation for example for an HORROR, ROMANTIC NIGHT, THRILLER etc. Its based on our creative and what effect the scene demands whether its morning effect are night effect.
🔥🔥
4:05 budget friendly version 6:27 use soft light for moonlight
I used baby light (light name) from outside of windows and cover with blue paper and from front i used white led for face to make night mood.
I've never created the moon light on purpose, but you can mess up with your white balance setting in camera to get some sort of blueish tint to the shot. It's not the perfect solution and still it's important to difuse the light, but it can be helpful ;) ... and even phones have WB setting - at least my cheap Samsung A3 with stock photo app.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I turn day light to moonlight by changing the kelvin in the camera and cover the window with diffusion curtain to reduce light coming in. We did this because we have limit time and can only film our kid actor during the day time. We then added tungsten light interior to give the scene more depth.
That's really smart! Good thinking with shifting the kelvin setting in-camera
I would use moonlight in an outdoor scene as a nice soft hair light, and contrast that with a nice warm orange light that would emulate a fire or street light that is my subjects key light...coupled with some fog for more of a atmospheric and dramatic effect!
Great idea to pair the moonlight with a warm accent light. The color contrast will cause each color to stand out more. And fog is always a good idea ;)
I'm a new creator that is creating more interview style videos. So I have yet to use moonlight in my shot. I think it would be hard to incorporate moonlight in an interview but would have to say the best shot would have to be using moonlight as the key light to light up the subject.
I LOVE YOUR VIDS! HIRE ME! 🤣 I once was shooting a shooting a basement scene with a lot of windows. Now I didn’t have any CTB But my friend did have Blacklights so we used a bunch of those and then in post I tinted it blue. Didn’t think it’d work but I was surprised!
Haha sometimes you can fix it in post. Very cool!
"On any budget"... proceeds to use thousands of dollars worth of equipment 😂
I tought exactly the same
why do you tempt us with light that are still unavailable??!! I want that nova haha
Once I had to shoot a night scene and I didn't have the right budget for it ;) . I had to shoot I man take a bath in a small river that had I small bridge just few meters away. I had just I 120d so I bounce it on a white board from above the bridge and It works pretty well and since I didn't have any gel I put 6000k on camera white balance and it helps to create the moon effect ;)!
That's awesome! Sounds like a really cool shot
@@aputurelighting Hey!! Thank you, any chance to show you the result? so any MC for me :D? You're the best!
I will USE moonlight in high open space in night such as farming land, forest, as a single source in top using crane
Wow
I used a moon light in a short film i shot and edited. In the film, i wanted to convey a feeling of anger from a little teenager who is not happy how her life has become because her mother never cared. The main actress was sitting backing the window with no interior light but just the moon light coming from behind and that created some very frightful feeling of her character which i wanted because she had tied up the mother with mouth wrapped on chair questioning her why she had to abandon her when she was little. I created a feeling in the audience mind that there was a power failure in the city reason why the interior had no light and had to come on only when the girl lit her cigarette.
It''s great to see how much you can do with cheaper lights and camera.
We used 2 small arris with blue gel shooting through a window
Moonlight? On a night hike. In the closing of a video where the scene fades to moonlight to enhance credits.
I recently used moonlight in a scene when I was shooting scenes at the home of the main character for my short feature film called "Cadas". You can see the result on the trailer. kzhead.info/sun/pKl6d9SOmoOtap8/bejne.html Funfact - the result was achieved with just one lamp outside the window. "Cadas" has it's premiere on February 2nd in local cinema and I'm so excited about it! For curious - moonlight scene was shoot on BMPCC4K with Panasonic 25mm and Tokina 11-16 on Viltrox EF-M2
I'm using moonlight to illuminate the cantankerous woodland creature starring in my next film.
Love the video! great lighting tips! In my film, I would use moonlight to help convey the sadness my character felt after a long day at work. Love this channel! keep up the good work!
I would use Moonlight in a horror film scene in a graveyard with som fog an with a police car witch contrast with the blue atmosphere by adding som red light. That would be awnsome. PS: sory for the language mistakes, I am french
Hi, Could you please suggest me a link to buy an MC for my upcoming project?
i used moonlight when i was doing a dark dinner scene where the couple were lit with 3 candles in the middle of the table
O had to use once when my directora wanted a blueish moonligth até noom hihg light day in a office. I used lots and lots of difission at The hundreds of windows até that office for The sim light and ajusted my WB to 3200k. It was nota preety but worked
I once used a redhead lamp with a blue gel for moonlight. It wasn't that great. If you can start with a 5600K lamp makes the whole thing sooo much easier.
You both should get the Nobel prize in economics. You're saving hundreds, thousands.
I want to light a moonlight scene for when someone wakes up in the middle of the night.
The MC doesn't let you simulate daylight + CTB, so you need to dial in an RGB color. This video doesn't mention which color they used. I went to Rosco's site and looked at the color swatches for their gels in the browser's developer tools. Unfortunately the MC also doesn't let you use RGB values, so you need to convert them to HSV. Even though the app says it uses HSI that's not really true because 100% intensity is always white in HSI, but when you turn the light up to 100% it does not become white. So you should use HSV and just throw away the V. Converting to HSL/HSI would give you too much saturation. 3202 Full Blue CTB [#909fff] HSV = 232 44 100 3204 Half Blue CTB [#c9d1ff] HSV = 231 21 100 3208 Quarter Blue CTB [#e8ecff] HSV = 230 9 100 3220 Double Blue CTB [#3a54ff] HSV = 232 77 100 3407 Roscosun CTO [#f78d1e] HSV = 31 88 97 3408 Roscosun 1/2 CTO [#fcc286] HSV = 31 47 99 3420 Roscosun Double CTO [#ff6c00] HSV = 25 100 100 3441 Full Straw (CTS) [#f7b14f] HSV = 35 68 97 3442 Half Straw (1/2 CTS) [#ffd3a8] HSV = 30 34 100 4330 CalColor 30 Cyan (full) [#b9e3ec] HSV = 191 22 93 4360 CalColor 60 Cyan (double) [#6ccbda] HSV = 188 50 85 4415 CalColor 15 Green (1/2 stop) [#cdff9d] HSV = 91 38 100 To use Half Blue you would set the MC to H:231º S:21%. To use Cyan 30 you would set the MC to H:191º S:22% A lot of people will mix a half blue and a quarter green gel for moonlight, and that's basically Cyan. Who knows how Rosco's site got those RGB values. But I would expect the white balance to be at 6000K. Aputure's other video on moonlight (from 2018) talks more about color.
How do you do this in an actual house not studio?
I think moonlight usually looks too fake so I try to not use it much like you know that’s a set. I try to light night scenes with street lights and house lights. But I agree that moonlight is a good excuse to have color contrast in your scene and can look really good.
Good point about using moonlight. Realistically if you have any other lighting source it's going to overpower any moonlight in an environment. But it is also true that it adds a nice contrast haha
Aputure does that mean I can get the MC for this video? 🥺 ...yeah! what you said sums up basically what I meant. Haha This happens I think because of the light absence we get during night. Even with the full moon in the sky, we don’t see much really and it’s very dim. This translated to cameras the set ‘moonlight’ usually looks too bright compared to what we really see. I think that’s why Kubrick wanted to shoot everything with candles in Barry Lyndon (save for one scene, which he cheated by necessity hehe)
Can't afford even the low budget version :(( great video anyway
Man you guys really paid attention to those comments hahah
I’m gonna use moonlight to raise Michael Jackson from the dead and reshoot the thriller video in Iran - thus creating world peace
How to shoot a good shot using 5d mark 3 with 24-105mm lens
A few years ago I had a night shoot that didn't quite go as planned. I needed to film a hunter walking through the moonlit woods but on the night of the shoot the moon was completely blocked out by clouds and it was pitch black. So our supplement lighting became our main lighting. Fortunately I had a few LED panels, batteries, and a reflector so we could be portable walking through the woods to film the scenes. We used the reflector to bounce some of that artificial moonlight back up into our actors face. Also shooting on the Sony A7S2 we really took advantage of the low light capabilities. I also comped in a fake moon and stars into the scene to try and help sell the fake light source. vimeo.com/manage/195262547/general In hindsight there was much to be learned about lighting, color of light, and portable options. We were definitely underpowered with what we had on hand, but I am learning everyday so I appreciate all of the great tutorials you post!
I used a couple of 672s as Moonlight once for a no-budget exterior Music Video, Rigged them on a couple of stands behind the talent then comp'ed them out in post. Used a couple of redheads into a bounce for colour contrast fill. check it out here: kzhead.info/sun/qNCEqZFubqKQgX0/bejne.html&ab_channel=BarkLikeADog
I used (poorly) moonlight lighting in a horror short for a film riot contest, but it wasn't in a major part of the frame but without it THE WHOLE SHOT would be destroyed! Thanks to you I have somewhere to fall back when create a moonlight lighting again
in my horror film setting Blue light behind a window For Feeling nervous and mysterious at night
The low budget setup looked better in her closeup.
I used moonlight, almost exclusively in a night scene where the artist in a music video is missing his ex girlfriend and is alone and depressed in his bedroom. I used onyl a 300d mkII and the aputure spotlight mount to blast through the window with a ctb. Video can be seen here. kzhead.info/sun/h76xYLaqp515pIU/bejne.html
If shooting on phone, bring lighting up one stop. The sensor is thirsty for light.
Nova 300d???
Stay tuned!
Without the 7° light the scene would look better.
I wish you'd talked to us in generics instead of pushing whatever brand of lights you used. It might have been real helpful. What the fork is an 'MC'? Initials alienate.
this is their channel, for their brand of lights lol. The aputure MC is the name of that model of light.
Hey! Thanks for the feedback! We'll work on being more specific with the lights in future episodes